


Gasoline

by dontstraytoofar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 14:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6808450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontstraytoofar/pseuds/dontstraytoofar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes your hero is clad in boxer shorts and a tank top</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gasoline

**Author's Note:**

> im. obsessed. 
> 
> this is the longest one shot i’ve ever written, and these two are amazing to write. regarding where this is set, after lots of research, i’ve just deducted a little au as to where the avengers would be post cw. so slight spoilers ahead x enjoy!
> 
> ps bucky is happy and ok and safe
> 
> pps. based on halsey’s gasoline

 

 

After it all, she feels like hiding.

Curling up, knees drawn in, letting her fingers twitch and move in jagged motions as she plays with falling autumn leaves, letting them drop softly to the earth. She doesn’t feel accomplished, better yet, nothing feels resolved. But she sits there in the sun of T’Challa’s hideout, warm heat marring her skin and slipping up her drawn in legs and she thinks of the straight jacket and how _everything_ leading to this was part her doing.

Her magic. Her _powers._ Her inability to even grasp the idea that maybe her mind eats itself at night and maybe the magic she harbours isn’t what makes a hero. A saviour.

She killed hundreds. Maybe even thousands. And the screams of them are a reminder, her dreams are a broken record that likes to play tricks on her. She _feels_ them, each scar and each burn and each cut. She feels them and she takes them like the most melancholy weight on her back, through dreams and disturbed nights she’ll wake up and feel them clawing her spine.

She reaches for her phone and lays back, trying not to let the moonlight catch her tears or the pillow catch her sobs.

Wanda will listen to music on repeat, earphones are a steady constant as she wakes up, walking around the mansion as soft classical music plays. Sometimes even pop, rarely metal. Natasha asks her one day who she listens too, and Wanda’s surprised she even has the energy to mutter “Debussy” and watch the warm smile spread onto the Black Widows face. It makes her smile back and she lets this rare moment to be bashful, to let a soft tendril of hair fall in her face and then to move it behind her ear.

Natasha has been, since the fighting and conflict, one of the rare people who can get her smiling. _Genuinely._ Vision and his cooking has Wanda laughing delightfully, how powder adorably sticks to his nose. Sometimes Bucky walks past the training grounds and smiles as he flips a towel onto his shoulder. And Steve is still Steve, grinning as Wanda makes progress in her abilities.

But it’s Natasha, it’s _Natasha_ that has Wanda thinking of home and safety and lets her entertain the thought that _maybe_ she’s okay. Maybe her mind is okay and that her hands are objects that can nurture. Not destroy.

She feels the heat of the sun bringing her out of her thoughts, she lets her magic splay out and reach to the deepest parts of the earth. Her eyes close, and she lays back listening to the ground underneath her breathe.

  “Hey kid”

 It’s not a surprise, Wanda felt Natasha’s heart beat from where she stood at the back sliding doors. The steady rhythm, even and controlled. Sometimes, rarely, Wanda feels an odd slip in the constant motion, a flicker of a lost beat. She tries to shake the thought away, Natasha’s heart beat could lull her to sleep.

 The younger woman then opens one eye into the sun, Natasha above her forming a silhouette as Wanda smiles a polite “Good morning” and lets her fingers lightly caress the grass. Natasha smirks, and flops down next to Wanda shoulder to shoulder. Staring with one eyebrow raised into the sky.

  “You’re out here quite a lot.”

 It’s not a question, just a soft statement into the late afternoon rays. Wanda closes her eyes again, hums lightly and speaks. “You would be too if you were contemplating,” Wanda shifts, opens her other eye and asks while she watches how the sun catches Natasha’s hair and how the other woman just stares into the open blue sky. Wanda swallows lightly, and keeps the image in the deepest part of her minds. How _soft_ Nat looks, how rare.

 “What do you do to contemplate?”

 Natasha frowns slightly, only just, and turns her head with a shrug. “Punch things”

 Wanda laughs at the blunt way Natasha delivers it, and the red headed woman can’t help the smirk that forms on her face. “What? Did you expect anything less?”

 Wanda’s chuckles subside and she raises her hand again, a warm glow touching her fingertips as she catches the sunlight in her magic still smiling. “No, you’re just funny sometimes. But really, you punch…things?” Natasha watches her hands, stares at the way Wanda’s fingers move. She tries not to let intrusive thoughts of what _exactly_ deft fingers like that could do, so she watches how alight and full of life Wanda looks. A shy smile and inquisitive eyes.

  “Yep. Usually Steve’s chest does the trick”

 Wanda’s eyes go stupidly adorablely _innocently_ wide and Natasha hates she probably looks soft right now in her gaze at the younger woman. “You punch Steve?”

 Nat smirks and looks to the sky again, shrugs and instead points to the sky. Tracing a silent pattern as her fingertips outline a cloud. “Hey, kinda looks like a car. Maybe a train. Motorbike?”

 Wanda stops her magic abruptly, thrown off at Natasha and her odd behaviour. She’s usually composed, and well, Wanda has _never_ seen her of all things, point out _cloud_ shapes. So the younger woman frowns towards Natasha and deadpans. “You’re being strange”

 Natasha looks back down from her staring contest with the sky and raises and eyebrow. “Strange?”

  “Yes. You’re not always this…” Natasha looks to Wanda with a furrow to her brows, and the younger woman likes the way she has a small crease and light scars in between her eyebrows. She continues, stopping her thoughts from going furthur as she was two seconds away from letting her powers into Natasha’s mind.

  “Well….bubbly”

 Natasha snorts and folds her arms, crossing her feet at the ankles and looks to the sky again. “I can be bubbly”

 Wanda hums, closes her eyes and says softly. “Yes, like a house cat is drawn to water”

 She can practically feel Natasha’s soft stare, feel the way the other womans eyes take her in. Wanda’s magic flaring at the attention and she silently chastises her weakness when it comes to the Black Widow. Natasha’s voice rings out, and it seems to coat Wanda in this warmth.

  “Okay, you got me. Steve asked me to talk to you”

 It would sting a little less if Wanda wasn’t enamoured with the woman across from her. It would sting less if Natasha was here for _her,_ here on her own willing agenda. Maybe just to talk, to sit silently in the summer sun. Wanda keeps silent, watching the back of her eyelids, softly sighing.

 Natasha continues, taking it as a sign. “He’s worried about you”

 Wanda opens both eyes then, the sting of the sudden light invasive as she sits up on her elbows. “He’s worried?” Her vulnerable gaze flickers to Natasha still on the ground, yet she soon sits up to Wanda’s level as she ducks her head slightly to reach Wanda’s downcast gaze.

  “We all are. What happened couldn’t have been light on you, I-”

 Wanda hardens slightly, walls flicking up instantly. Eyes flashing out of her control and she sees the red reflection in Nat’s gaze, it all makes her want to crawl up again. Hide her hands and heart so nothing can break. “It wasn’t light on anyone. Not you, not Steve.”

  _Especially not the hundred of souls I destroyed._

 Natasha’s gaze remains steady, and Wanda, for a split second, wonders if she’ll reach out. Wonders if the older woman will hold her, a mute hand against her shoulder. But instead she gets a throat clearing, Natasha leaning back on her hands to let the sun catch her neck and face. Wanda’s thankful for the drop in conversation, and Natasha just enjoys the brief calm the younger woman gives her. They sit in silence for what feels like hours, grass tickling their legs and the soft hum of the air around them all that pierces the silence.

 Natasha sighs, and Wanda hears her speak.

  “I didn’t come out here just for Steve”

 And with that Wanda turns her head to see Natasha stand up, brushing the back of her legs. The sun follows her as she walks to the back door, hair swaying in the wind. Wanda reaches out with her mind, closing her eyes and drawing her knees up. She gets a soft echo of Natasha’s mind, of her deepest thoughts, and buries her head into her knees.

  _I came for you._

 She sits there. Waits.

 Lets her fingers play with the setting sun, replays the unspoken thoughts a thousand times. Until the light dips over the horizon.

 

 

 

 

It’s the next night that she wakes up in sweat and tears and heaving lungs. She wakes up with a scream.

 The clock blinks 3:24 am, she’s gasping, eyes wide and alight with a red glow. She fists her hair, running her fingers through it and putting her elbows to her knees. Trying to calm her breathing, to stop the screams that echo in her mind. Wanda sobs, she breaks and she bends and her shoulders shake with the effort of holding these deaths, these souls that alight her bones and spine as a reminder.

 Her brother, her sweet sweet brother likes to wave at her and smile with a teasing grin in these dreams and ask her _“How many minutes? 13? Are you sure?”_

 Her magic flares, only slightly, flickering the lights of her room and causing her clock to blink slower. She hugs her knees close, lets her hair fall around her legs and holds herself. She holds herself so no one else has to, so no one needs to get _close_ to her again. The lights stop flickering, her red energy dissipates and there is a creak in the quiet  as her bedroom door opens. Natasha. Bathed in a soft glow of light. Boxer shorts and a tank top fitted to her body.

Wanda see’s a messily put together wonder, and she has to stop herself from laughing at the dishevelled way the great Black Widow looks with hair tousled and sleepy eyes. Her worried voice catches her ears and Wanda tries to control the little remaining magic in the air.

  “I heard screaming. You okay?”

 Wanda lets her knees relax somewhat, and she lets the voice that reminds her of home calm her twitching fingers and her curled toes. The younger woman frowns, staring at the quilt, fingers nervously playing with the ends of her sleeves.  “I-I’m not sure.”

 Natasha softly closes the door, stepping into the darkness. “Can I come in?”

 Wanda in answer, moves to make room on the bed, hands still covered by a thin t shirt’s sleeves and Natasha gives herself this moment to see how small she is. How withdrawn her body and her mind seem to be. She sits cross legged on the bed next to her, wondering if she should talk.

 But Wanda beats her to it, frowning into the darkness. “Do you ever have nightmares Natasha?”

 Her name on her lips takes her by surprise, but it’s...nice. Wanda’s voice reminds her of a closeness, of cold winters and long warm nights. Accent coated in thick layers of gold, and Natasha wants to let herself go. For once not leave the bed the next morning. She finds the girl across from her undoes her, unravels her.  

 And it fills Natasha with a longing, a _dangerous_ longing.

 She shakes it away, and answers. “Sometimes. Most of the time.” Natasha lets her hand fall to the middle of the bed, and watches how Wanda tries to bury her hands ever deeper into her shirt. Her gaze softens, and it worries her how easy she is stripped bare before Wanda.

  “You know, I would dream about home sometimes”

 Wanda looks up, soft tear stains still hugging her cheeks. “You would?”

  “Yeah.” Natasha chuckles briefly, and shakes her head looking down. “Clint used to pick up his daughter and fly her like an aeroplane to me. Would always say how she loved her Aunt Nat. The little terror is, unfortunately, _exactly_ like me”

 Wanda smiles, chuckles lightly, and it’s enough for Natasha to forget about rough hands and stinging needles and the feeling of hopelessness as ballet shoes suffocate her feet. It’s enough to forget the nightmares, to briefly just _stop._ To feel safe.

 Wanda’s chuckles subside as she gazes to Natasha, and she notices how the air is still and it’s void of magic. The sheets are the only thing that move as they talk. Yet she frowns briefly afterwards and shakes her head before she stops herself, Wanda left slightly confused. “Sorry I..I assumed you meant Russia when you said home”

 Natasha shrugs and leans back, blowing hair out of her face as her boxer shorts ride up. “Home isn’t always a place. It can be a feeling”

 Wanda lets her knees drop, to a relaxed position as her hands fall into her lap. “Do you know how to stop them? The nightmares?”

 Wanda looks to her hand, to Natasha’s lean fingers and palm, and she wishes to hold them. To feel them ease her worries. So she lets her fingers fall next to Natasha’s, and their pinkies touch. Natasha makes no indication she feels it, she just lets her voice ring out into the mild darkness as she looks to Wanda bathed in the light glow from the door.  “When I do, you’ll be the first to know”

 Wanda lets her pinky hook around Natasha’s, and she lets her mind free, picking up words flicking from Natasha’s mind a mile a minute. She’s guarded even around Wanda, a mindless shopping list suddenly passes into Wanda’s mind.

  “Would you stay with me?”

 It’s vulnerable, yet shines with an acceptance of denial if the older woman wishes to go to bed and forget about everything that’s happened tonight. Yet Natasha feels the touch, its feather like, like cotton against skin and she finds herself saying “Of course” and laying back with Wanda like they did so many days ago.

 Their hands separate, Natasha wakes up to Wanda screaming three more times. She holds her, hushes her and sings until her throat is dry and until the vibrant red magic has seeped back into the air. Until Wanda’s glowing eyes shut, and until Natasha can stop seeing herself in a lost girl, until she can stop seeing a reflection of herself with blood on her hands she never wanted to have stained.

 She _understands_ Wanda, and it’s more dangerous than loving will ever do.

 

 

 

  


The morning is silent, Natasha is gone before dawn and all Wanda is left with is a soft imprint and Natasha’s perfume as any indication last night was _real._

Wanda twitches her fingers, gets up and puts training clothes on. The morning is cool, frost lines the edges of her window and she picks up her phone and earphones as she presses play. The starting notes of a violin eases into her tired mind as she makes it into the kitchen. Steve’s there, standing across from Bucky as he shovels spoonfuls of cereal a mile a minute. It makes Wanda raise an eyebrow as she passes, watching the warm smile of Steve as she grabs an apple from the table and shines it on her shirt.

  “Someone I see is hungry” She smirks, turning around and grabbing a water bottle from the fridge.

 Steve folds his arms and shakes his head with a laugh, and gazes at how Bucky looks up with a look of “What?” like shovelling a kilogram of lucky charms is simply _normal._

 She runs the forest edge for what seems like miles, and she forgets about her smiling brother and Natasha’s warm body pressed against her own as the crisp air fills her senses. She lets her mind free, so much so, that she hears a birds heartbeat as she stands beneath the trees. Thinking of the red of Natasha’s hair, the deep ruby of her powers, she stopped herself at the thought of Natasha’s lips, the serpent sting her kiss could inflict.

 She’s almost out of breath before she makes it back, sliding open the glass doors to the kitchen and taking a sip of her water.

  “Hey hot stuff”

 And Wanda finds herself to a sight to behold that she almost spits her drink out.

 Natasha Romanoff.

  _Cooking._

 Granted they’re pancakes, but the thought and imagery of a _still_ boxer clad Natasha just makes Wanda laugh and let a “Hello” out between chuckles. Natasha acts offended, flipping the pan as the mix inside flips perfectly.

  “What? Don’t knock em til you try em. Steve just ate a whole army’s worth” That’s when Wanda notices Steve, broad shouldered, sitting sheepishly behind the breakfast table with cheeks full as he swallows.

 Wanda smiles, and shakes her head. “I don’t doubt that for a second. Good morning Steve”

 He smiles, all tooth and pancake as Natasha rolls her eyes. “Mornin’ Wanda!”

 And the morning is slow, it’s easy. Wanda reads most of the day, and the brief moments she sees Natasha they are silent yet warm, a soft understanding of the night before. It’s when Natasha sits next to Wanda on the couch, drawing her legs up onto Wanda’s lap and dropping them, is the peace broken. She effectively makes Wanda drop the book she was reading, the younger witch frowning at the spies childishness sometimes.

  “Can I help you?” It’s a teasing tone from Wanda, and the woman across from her smirks. “Why yes you can young padawan”

 Wanda frowns once again, and Natasha curses the cuteness she holds. “Pada..wan?”

 Natasha drops her smirk and laughs to fill the silence, poking Wanda with her toe on her thigh and raising an eyebrow. “Oh god. Please tell me you’ve seen Star Wars” Wanda frowns and shakes her head, biting her lip slightly. “Sorry, mustn't have been popular in Sakovia?”

 Natasha sits up cross legged, stares at Wanda bluntly then lifts the corner of her lip almost unnoticeably. “Sorted then. Star Wars marathon tomorrow night”

 Wanda laughs and shakes her head, picking up her book and flips to the page she was on. “You’re very strange sometimes”

 Natasha shrugs, smirking as she sits almost cat like as she regards Wanda with her eyes flashing. “I’ve been called worse”

 Wanda returns to her book with a smile, and Natasha walks into the kitchen with an “Oh and spar me tonight? Steve’s out doing something with Bucky” thrown over her shoulder so casually that Wanda wasn’t prepared. Sparring? With the Black Widow?

 Wanda involuntary twitches her fingers, and looks to her lap. Her voice is soft, yet worried because she doesn’t know if she’s _ready_ yet, to harm another, even though slightly, with the magic from her fingertips. “Spar?”

 She isn’t, in the slightest, _afraid_ of her powers, she’s afraid she can’t control them. Control the fear that grips her, the fear that is in the deepest recess of her heart.

The fear she plays on and manipulates in other people isn’t _theirs._

 It’s her _own_.

 And it lights up her chest with a fire she tries to dull.

 Natasha jumps up onto the stove counter top and swings her legs, long lean and muscular, and if Wanda wasn’t thinking of the multitude of ways she could kill her in the next 24 hours, she’d find herself hypnotised by Natasha’s figure. The older woman nods, and tilts her head slightly. “Yeah. You okay with that?”

 Wanda frowns, watches sparks dance across her palms and index finger, and she says “Of course” even though her touch could break, even the infamous Black Widow, in two. As it has so done before.

 

 

 

 

They meet in the middle, training gear worn and dripped in sweat as Natasha pushes Wanda to nearly the brink of what she can take. The other woman is so _fast,_ agile enough to dodge most of Wanda’s magic attacks and every time she makes it to the young witch she finds it funny to hook her leg behind Wanda’s and pin her to the floor.

 She lands almost always with an “Oof!” and a frown marring her features as Natasha straddles her, pinning her arms to her sides rendering Wanda defenceless.  “You’re doing this on purpose” All Wanda gets in reply is a smirk as Natasha stands up, brushing her hands and folding her arms.

  “Maybe. But you can’t rely _just_ on your powers. What if your opponent suddenly could mute your magic? You’d just be a scared lost little girl”

 Wanda draws her eyebrows together, tilting her head. And she doesn’t in anyway, _like_ this side of Natasha. The side where she gets under your skin, makes you squirm from the confinements of your own safety. “I’m not a scared little girl”

 Natasha raises an eyebrow and looks her up and down. “Last time I checked that’s no bad thing Wanda, being a girl that is. Scared? You gotta work on that”

 Wanda fists her hands, and she sets her gaze as determined. Getting into fighting stance and twitching her fingers letting her magic splay out. It caresses her skin, and she can feel the entire room in her senses, to the other womans breathing and to the random words Natasha is filling her mind with. They agreed before hand no _“mind control heeby jeeby”_ as Natasha put it so eloquently. Just tactics, immobilizing the Black Widows body with her powers.  

 Wanda breathes in, and breathes out. “Just, let’s try again with magic. I can do this”

 Natasha sighs and drops her arms, moving her neck side to side. “Okay then. Don’t go easy”

 Wanda smirks and her eyes glow a deep scarlet, the tendrils of magic already shooting towards Natasha’s figure. “I never do”

 But Natasha is flexible, she’s the water that bends and carves. Wanda’s magic coils once around her wrist, yet Natasha just  twists once sliding onto the floor, feet first for Wanda’s figure. The young witch rolls to the side, coming to a kneeling position as her fingers weave her magic like puppets, and she’s able to get Natasha flung to the side by making her arm fly out of her control. She smirks as Natasha lets a “Jesus girl” out as her body lands heavily on the mat.

 But Wanda’s pride is short lived as Natasha quickly dodges her next attacks, bending like an archway as Wanda’s magic misses her neck only _just._ And she’s able to take a hold of Wanda’s wrist and twist it around her back, pulling the younger girls back to her front as Natasha seizes her hands and therefore her magic.

  “Didn’t I say don’t go easy?” Wanda groans and wriggles her wrist. “Again”

 And they do. Again and again and again and each time Wanda is slammed into the mat, hands seized, legs kicked out with a smirking Natasha _each and every time._ It’s the last flip onto her back that has Wanda _fuming,_ gritting her teeth so unlike her natural calm.

  “For god’s sake! Do you not let up Natasha?”

 The older woman raises an eyebrow, and scoffs. “If I let up you wouldn’t learn. Come on, one more time”

 But Wanda sighs and starts to shed the straps on her wrists. “No. I’m done for today” Natasha tilts her head, folding her arms again and jutting her hip out. “Hey, killer, if you gave up this easily in a fight, you’d be dead”

 Wanda gathers her hair up in a ponytail, wiping the sweat off her forehead after she ties it together. She can practically feel the bruises lining her spine and thighs. “Well, lucky it isn’t a real fight then”

 Natasha drops her folded arms and puts them on her hips, sighing then closing her eyes. Wanda _needs_ control, and one way to get control is perseverance. And Natasha isn’t giving up, she, well. She isn’t giving up on Wanda, the idea of her stopping _now_ after getting so far?

  “Look, I’m only trying to help. You need to learn how to protect yourself without your magic”

 Wanda’s eyes glow the devastating red as her jaw locks, and Natasha can say she’s never seen anything so fiercely beautiful. “Has it ever occurred to you I am fine on my own, Natasha?”

 Natasha walks closer, and Wanda feels a soft hand on the crook of her elbow and she’s surprised and a little unnerved how easy her eyes dim to the natural hazel after the other womans touch. But her magic still flares, and maybe after so much physical activity and maybe after so much _strain_ from both woman does her magic slip. Does her magic travel up Natasha touch and into her mind. Wanda gasps, eyes wide and worried as she rips her arm from the older womans touch. But the damage is done, Natasha’s eyes and veins in her neck glow a bright red, and Wanda _sees_ her for the second time.

Yet it’s quiet in the dream, there is no screaming, there is no dark endless halls or bleeding dancing toes. There is snow, or maybe ash, falling from the sky. And a little Natasha, red curls, is laughing as the particles fall. They get caught in her hair, white against red, spilling like blood. And Wanda is screaming at her mind to _leave._ She is too deep, too _far_ into the Black Widows mind and this memory seems to be something not opened in a millenia.

It’s dusted, and the edges of her vision are burnt, like a photograph. Wanda watches how a little Natasha laughs, spinning in circles and falling into the snow.

 But the snow turns to this ash, to a thick coat of destruction and Natasha starts crying, just a small girl, alone covered in burnt debris. There are gunshots, a tank rolls past the small child and Wanda wishes to reach out, to cover the little girl in blankets. In her vision she see’s hands pick her up, rough calloused hands. And Wanda screams out to put her down, to let her _go._ She is only a little girl! Leave her!

 She feels the back of her shirt be pulled back, and the entire dream fades from view as she’s brought back to the present. She is ripped back with a gasp, her magic dissipating and falling back into her fingers from the other womans head.

 She see’s Natasha blink slowly, eyes shining. Gathering her bearings.

 And Wanda has tears in her eyes, in pure _regret. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to. Natasha…_

 But she doesn’t voice a word, she just stares and waits as Natasha’s jaw sets, as her eyes flicker to Wanda’s. As she swallows once and as the Black Widow’s fists clench. Wanda steps forward, yet she is immediately met with a step back from Natasha.

  “Natasha I-”

  “Again?”

 Wanda is rendered mute, and Natasha has one single tear, straight and glistening, fall to her chin. Her voice is broken, it crackles with a silent plea to _never_ touch her again. “Once not enough for you?”

 And she closes her eyes, lets the tear fall to the ground, walking past Wanda with a slight brush of her shoulder. It makes her shiver, it makes her wince and let her own tears fall.

 She hears the door to the training room slam shut, she smells Natasha’s perfume linger like the most prettiest of scents, she feels the other womans heart beat like a resounding thud. Steady, _broken._ It skips like so many times before. And Wanda brings her hands to her hair, covering her mouth to stop the sobs. In _hatred_ for herself, in what she’s done for the _second_ time.

 She collapses to the ground, knees drawn up.

 And she mourns a woman’s childhood, she cries for Natasha. And she yells into the empty room, her magic flaring and sweeping everything in it’s path, ridding of Wanda’s fear.

 Her fear of loss.

 Her fear of loving someone, just to lose them all over again like the ash, like the snow, like the words that left Natasha’s mind unsaid as she brushed against her body.

  _I shouldn’t have trusted you._

 And it hurts; more than a finely pressed knife to her heart.

 

 

  


Wanda doesn’t see her for another 3 days. Natasha goes out, and when she comes back she sticks to places Wanda can’t find her. Her door is always shut. Music always playing behind the closed door. Wanda places her fist to knock, drags her hand down the wood, and turns around each time.

 She contemplates reaching out with her magic, make sure Natasha’s heart is still _beating._ To hear the calming rhythm. But she opts to runs her fingers through her hair, and go on her way.

 She marathons Star Wars with Bucky, and he’s content to just recline with Wanda next to him as she plays with the sleeves of her shirt, as she tilts her head at times during the movie. “So, the Dark Lord, he’s Luke's father?” Bucky smiles and nods, drinking from the beer bottle he grabbed earlier. “Yep.”

 Wanda furrows her brows, sitting cross legged as she’s hit with a sudden thought. “Wait, doesn’t that mean Princess Leia is…?” Bucky smiles again, and nods. He’s still quiet with most people, but Wanda and him have sparked a sought of friendship, it’s a tentative one, but one none the less. Wanda widens her eyes and then winces, shivering slightly. “Ugh. Gross. Siblings? They kissed! That’s…”

 Bucky raises an eyebrow, and teasingly answers. “What? Gross?”

 Wanda laughs, and nods slightly, pulling on her sleeves again. They fall into comfortable silence once again, and Wanda lets her mind wonder as she stares at the screen.

  “Will Natasha speak to me?”

 Bucky lowers the bottle, a thoughtful expression on his face as he answers. “I think she will. Giver her time. I think she’s just hurt”  Wanda bites her lip, nods, and twitches her fingers on impulse.

  “Right, yes. Of course”

 Natasha doesn’t speak to her for another week. And Wanda is quiet, she listens to music on repeat and drowns in her thoughts.  

 And it’s only when Wanda screams awake, another night of restless sleep, another night of torture from her own mind, does her door open again and the hero with boxer shorts and a singlet top stands bathed in light. Natasha stands and leans against the door jam, arms folded as Wanda’s magic stills the air.

  “Can’t sleep?”

 Wanda is silent, she wishes not to break the tentative trust, the vulnerable moments at her fingertips. So she just watches in awe and breathlessness from her nightmare as Natasha walks in, sitting cross legged on the younger woman's bed. “Me either, killer. Got room for two?”

 She does, she always will for Natasha.

 So she silently shuffles over, and they’re separated by thin sheets and clothes. Wanda sits up, level with Natasha as she watches out of the corner of her eye how the other woman looks as if in deep thought. Wanda opens her mouth, voice croaky from her screams.

  “I-”

  “It was an accident. I know”

 Natasha has an upturn to her lips, turning her head as the light from the open door catches her hair, and Wanda is lost in the way that Natasha can look ethereal in every setting. “What you did, seeing my mind, I know you didn’t mean it” And all Wanda can do is look to her hands, closing her eyes as she breathes into stall her tears. “I’m sorry Natasha. For everything I-”

  “Hey” Natasha ducks her head slightly, catching Wanda’s gaze as she opens her eyes. And they’re caught, in a breathless moment they stare and neither turn their heads or break the silence and eyes flicker to lips but  it’s Wanda who softly whispers: “I watched Star Wars without you” as her breath hits Natasha’s lips.

 The other woman slowly breaks into a small smile, and _laughs._ Natasha chuckles, shakes her head, and it’s the sweetest, most deepest melody Wanda has ever heard. “No problem. We can watch the prequels”

 And it’s stupid how giddy it makes Wanda feel, because it’s a _promise_ it’s some indication she hasn’t lost Natasha and the fear that grips her heart bubbles down to the softest murmur. She matches Natasha’s smile, yet is slowly halts in its movement because Wanda can smell ash and hear a little girls scream.

  “It was you in the dream, wasn’t it?”

 Natasha sighs, looks to Wanda’s lips and whispers. “Yeah”

 She feels Natasha’s stare, and Wanda bites her lip as her eyes gravitate to the scarlet lips across from her. The air stills, something inside Wanda crackles to life. Yet she frowns, unable to stop the words.  “I’m sorry”

 Natasha looks to her eyes, losing herself. “For seeing it, or that it happened?” And Wanda reaches a palm up, it stings when Natasha flinches slightly, but she eases into the touch of her palm against her cheek and Wanda breathes into the open night like a prayer. “Both”

 They lean in the same time, and it’s soft and overwhelming. Lips pressed together, nothing is rushed, it’s like their lips are forming perfect crescents and Wanda wants nothing more than to be full. Become rounded and filled by everything Natasha; and Natasha herself wants the same. So she cradles Wanda’s cheek, pressing more firmly, and they fall into the sheets. Breathing the other, soft moans as hands explore skin and breasts. As they kiss and they kiss until the other forgets where they are.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” Wanda breathes it in between kisses, so desperately does she yearn for Natasha to _understand,_ that she’s remorseful. For _everything._ For the deaths, for her invasive magic, for being uncontrollable.

 The thing is, as Natasha pulls back and kisses her neck and back up to silent Wanda’s worries, is that Natasha understands so deeply that it’s silly to ever think she needs to be _sorry._ As Natasha has already felt this remorse, this ache to be afraid of not only yourself, but your capabilities. She rid of that fear long ago, yet as she feels Wanda kiss lightly at her jaw, and nip the skin, she falls and moulds to Wanda’s touch. And the fear of having to _depend_ on someone rears it’s head.

 Yet she swallows it, and hushes so softly, her voice husky, all of Wanda’s worries.

 The room's windows are painted red with vibrant magic, with passionate scarlets that fall from Wanda’s fingertips as she traces the skin of Natasha’s naval. And as Wanda’s magic spreads, she makes sure to not scrape Natasha’s mind. But the woman above her murmurs to her, a deep whisper next to her ear.

  “It’s okay. Read me”

 And Wanda does, closing her eyes as they kiss deeper, more desperate, and her name is a mantra in Natasha’s mind. It’s intimate, it’s so close it takes Wanda’s breath away.

  _Wanda. Wanda. Wanda._

 And she herself gasps “Natasha” like a prayer underneath the summer sun, and she imprints the image she saved so long ago. And she shares it with the woman above her, she hears a gasp as Natasha see’s the memory as her magic spreads to her mind. Natasha’s silhouetted body, orange mixed in her red hair. She feels, to the apex of her spine, the feeling of the sun's warmth catching their skin as they lay beneath the sky.

 The next morning is light, they’re spent with weary bones and aching lips yet neither wake from their own torments another day after that. Wanda stirs, and Natasha is already up cross legged traces patterns on Wanda’s skin. “Hey”

 Wanda smiles, and stretches until she moans at the feeling. She feels Natasha’s eyes on her and the smirk she’s most likely sporting. “You’re like a kitty. A cute one” Wanda rolls her eyes with a smile, and husks back as she climbs from slumber. “Goodmorning to you too”

 And it _is_ good, it’s warm and soft like the palpable touch of Natasha. They fall asleep again until midday, and neither dream of ash or screams or fear. They dream of _good_ things; as it should be.

 And both women fall, not an ounce of fear in their wake.


End file.
